Activated biochars used as adsorbents for dyes removal

Adsorption represents one of the most interesting technique for the removal of pollutants from wastewaters. Activated carbons show the best performances on this kind of processes but their high production costs limit their applications. In this context a big challenge is to find new materials having characteristic similar to those of commercial activated carbons but being environmental friendly and cheaper. In this work the adsorption efficiency of activated biochars produced from pine wood was investigated on the removal of dyes from water. An innovative method for the activation of the biochar using deep eutectic solvents (DES) was tuned and the characteristics of the obtained adsorbent material were compared with those of biochar activated with traditional method and non-activated biochar. The best adsorption capacities were obtained with the DES activated biochar, reaching a value of 480 mg/g for the methylene blue adsorption. Adsorption isotherm and kinetic models were applied to experimental data in order to understand the adsorption mechanism of the process

Contemporary Perspectives in Pathophysiology of Facial Nerve Damage in Oto-Neurological and Skull Base Surgical Procedures: A Narrative Review

During the last decades, neuro-otological surgery has progressively reduced functional morbidity, including facial nerve damage. However, the occurrence of this sequela may significantly impact on patients’ quality of life. The aim of this narrative review is to provide an update on the patho-physiological and clinical issues related to facial nerve damage in oto-neurological and skull base surgery, in the light of a comprehensive therapeutic and rehabilitative approach to iatrogenic disfunctions. The narrative review is based on a search in the PubMed, Scopus, andWeb of Science databases. In this surgical setting, the onset of intraoperative facial nerve damage is related to various aspects, mainly concerning the anatomical relationship between tumor and nerve, the trajectory of the surgical corridor, and the boundaries of the resection margins. Mechanisms related to stretching, compression, devascularization, and heating may play a role in determining intraoperative facial nerve damage and provide the patho-physiological basis for possible nerve regeneration disorders. Most of the studies included in this review, dealing with the pathophysiology of surgical facial nerve injury, were preclinical. Future research should focus on the association between intraoperative trauma mechanisms and their clinical correlates in surgical practice. Further investigations should also be conducted to collect and record intraoperative data on nerve damage mechanisms, as well as the reports from neuro-monitoring systems

Transforming activities of Chlamydia pneumoniae in human mesothelial cells

Knowledge in viral oncology has made considerable progress in the field of cancer fight. However, the role of bacteria as mediators of oncogenesis has not yet been elucidated. As cancer still is the leading cause of death in developed countries, understanding the long-term effects of bacteria has become of great importance as a possible means of cancer prevention. This study reports that Chlamydia pneumoniae infection induce transformation of human mesothelial cells. Mes1 cells infected with C. pneumoniae at a multiplicity of infection of 4 inclusion-forming units/cell showed many intracellular inclusion bodies. After a 7-day infection an increased proliferative activity was also observed. Real-time PCR analysis revealed a strong induction of calretinin, Wilms’ tumour gene 1, osteopontin, matrix metalloproteinases-2, and  membrane-type 1 metalloproteinases gene expression in Mes1 cell, infected for a longer period (14 days). The results were confirmed by western blot analysis. Zymography analysis showed that C. pneumoniae modulated the in-vitro secretion of MMP-2 in Mes1 cells both at 7 and 14 days. Cell invasion, as measured by matrigel-coated filter, increased after 7 and 14 days infection with C. pneumoniae, compared with uninfected Mes1 cells. The results of this study suggest that C. pneumoniae infection might support cellular transformation, thus increasing lung cancer risk. [Int Microbiol 2014; 17(4):185-193]Keywords: Chlamydia pneumoniae · cytotoxicity · human mesothelial cells · cellular transformation · tumoral marker

The use of neural networks to probe the structure of the nearby universe

In the framework of the European VO-Tech project, we are implementing new machine learning methods specifically tailored to match the needs of astronomical data mining. In this paper, we shortly present the methods and discuss an application to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey public data set. In particular, we discuss some preliminary results on the 3-D taxonomy of the nearby (z < 0.5) universe. Using neural networks trained on the available spectroscopic base of knowledge we derived distance estimates for ca. 30 million galaxies distributed over 8,000 sq. deg. We also use unsupervised clustering tools to investigate whether it is possible to characterize in broad morphological bins the nature of each object and produce a reliable list of candidate AGNs and QSOs

Measuring the Three-Dimensional Structure of Galaxy Clusters. I. Application to a Sample of 25 Clusters

We discuss a method to constrain the intrinsic three-dimensionale shapes of galaxy clusters by combining X-Ray and Sunyaev-Zeldovich observations. The method is applied to a sample of 25 X-Ray selected clusters, with measured Sunyaev-Zeldovich temperature decrements. The sample turns out to be slightly biased, with strongly elongated clusters preferentially aligned along the line of sight. This result demonstrates that X-Ray selected cluster samples may be affected by morphological and orientation effects even if a relatively high threshold signal-to-noise ratio is used to select the sample. A large majority of the clusters in our sample exhibit a marked triaxial structure, with prolate-like shapes being slightly more likely than oblate-like ones; the spherical hypothesis is strongly rejected for most sample members. Cooling flow clusters do not show preferentially regular morphologies.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures. Accepted by Ap

Measuring the Three-Dimensional Structure of Galaxy Clusters. II. Are clusters of galaxies oblate or prolate?

The intrinsic shape of galaxy clusters can be obtained through a combination of X-ray and Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect observations once cosmological parameters are assumed to be known. In this paper we discuss the feasibility of modelling galaxy clusters as either prolate or oblate ellipsoids. We analyze the intra-cluster medium distribution for a sample of 25 X-ray selected clusters, with measured Sunyaev-Zeldovich temperature decrements. A mixed population of prolate and oblate ellipsoids of revolution fits the data well, with prolate shapes preferred on a 60-76% basis. We observe an excess of clusters nearly aligned along the line of sight, with respect to what is expected from a randomly oriented cluster population, which might imply the presence of a selection bias in our sample. We also find signs that a more general triaxial morphology might better describe the morphology of galaxy clusters. Additional constraints from gravitational lensing could disentangle the degeneracy between an ellipsoidal and a triaxial morphology, and could also allow an unbiased determination of the Hubble constant.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophys.

Treatment with FRAX486 rescues neurobehavioral and metabolic alterations in a female mouse model of CDKL5 deficiency disorder

Introduction: CDKL5 deficiency disorder (CDD) is a rare neurodevelopmental condition, primarily affecting girls for which no cure currently exists. Neuronal morphogenesis and plasticity impairments as well as metabolic dysfunctions occur in CDD patients. The present study explored the potential therapeutic value for CDD of FRAX486, a brain-penetrant molecule that was reported to selectively inhibit group I p21-activated kinases (PAKs), serine/threonine kinases critically involved in the regulation of neuronal morphology and glucose homeostasis.Methods: The effects of treatment with FRAX486 on CDD-related alterations were assessed in vitro (100 nM for 48h) on primary hippocampal cultures from Cdkl5-knockout male mice (Cdkl5-KO) and in vivo (20 mg/Kg, s.c. for 5 days) on Cdkl5-KO heterozygous females (Cdkl5-Het).Results: The in vitro treatment with FRAX486 completely rescued the abnormal neuronal maturation and the number of PSD95-positive puncta in Cdkl5-KO mouse neurons. In vivo, FRAX486 normalized the general health status, the hyperactive profile and the fear learning defects of fully symptomatic Cdkl5-Het mice. Systemically, FRAX486 treatment normalized the levels of reactive oxidizing species in the whole blood and the fasting-induced hypoglycemia displayed by CdklS-Het mice. In the hippocampus of Cdkl5-Het mice, treatment with FRAX486 rescued spine maturation and PSD95 expression and restored the abnormal PAKs phosphorylation at sites which are critical for their activation (P-PAK-Ser144/141/139) or for the control cytoskeleton remodeling (P-PAK1-Thr212).Conclusions: Present results provide evidence that PAKs may represent innovative therapeutic targets for CDD

Mining the SDSS archive. I. Photometric redshifts in the nearby universe

We present a supervised neural network approach to the determination of photometric redshifts. The method was tuned to match the characteristics of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and it exploits the spectroscopic redshifts provided by this unique survey. In order to train, validate and test the networks we used two galaxy samples drawn from the SDSS spectroscopic dataset: the general galaxy sample (GG) and the luminous red galaxies subsample (LRG). The method consists of a two steps approach. In the first step, objects are classified in nearby (z<0.25) and distant (0.25<z<0.50). In the second step two different networks are separately trained on objects belonging to the two redshift ranges. Using a standard MLP operated in a Bayesian framework, the optimal architectures were found to require 1 hidden layer of 24 (24) and 24 (25) neurons for the GG (LRG) sample. The presence of systematic deviations was then corrected by interpolating the resulting redshifts. The final results on the GG dataset give a robust sigma_z = 0.0208 over the redshift range [0.01, 0.48] and sigma_z = 0.0197 and sigma_z = 0.0238 for the nearby and distant samples respectively. For the LRG subsample we find a robust sigma_z = 0.0164 over the whole range, and sigma_z = 0.0160, sigma_z = 0.0183 for the nearby and distant samples respectively. After training, the networks have been applied to all objects in the SDSS Table GALAXY matching the same selection criteria adopted to build the base of knowledge, and photometric redshifts for ca. 30 million galaxies having z<0.5 were derived. A catalogue containing photometric redshifts for the LRG subsample was also produced.Comment: 45 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication is the Astrophysical Journa

Allocazione delle risorse per l’attuazione del “Programma dei Lavori Pubblici" per il Triennio 2020-2022 ed “Elenco dei Lavori” 2020.

Per l’attuazione degli interventi edilizi dell’Istituto relativamente al triennio 2020-2022 si è predisposto il quadro di dettaglio delle risorse che sono state rese disponibili per tale scopo, con riferimento alla opportuna allocazione delle medesime nel relativo Bilancio di previsione per l’annualità 2021. Il rapporto a tal fine preparato dalla struttura tecnica denominata “Tavolo Tecnico Permanente per il Patrimonio Immobiliare e i Lavori Pubblici”, è stato redatto sulla scorta degli approfondimenti tecnici ed amministrativi compiuti in fase di istruttoria sulle richieste formulate dalle Strutture di ricerca ubicate su tutto il territorio nazionale, costituenti il quadro generale delle esigenze

Relazione tecnica e tabella contenente gli importi, le coordinate di bilancio di provenienza e di destinazione nonché le “Strutture di Ricerca” destinatarie dei fondi di cui allo “Elenco dei lavori” per l’anno 2020 del “Programma triennale dei lavori pubblici 2020-2022” approvato con Delibera del 31 marzo 2021, numero 14.

Il presente rapporto tecnico si pone l’obiettivo di individuare gli importi da destinare alle “Strutture di ricerca” di cui allo “elenco dei lavori” per l’anno 2020 del “Programma triennale lavori pubblici 2020-2022” approvato con delibera del 31 marzo 2021, numero 14 con le relative coordinate di bilancio sia di provenienza che di destinazione secondo quanto previsto con riferimento al Decreto 25 gennaio 2019, “Aggiornamento dell’allegato 1 del Decreto del Presidente della Repubblica 4 ottobre 2013, numero 132 “Piano dei conti integrato”, ai sensi dell’articolo 5 del medesimo D.P.R. e del comma 4, articolo 4 del Decreto Legislativo 31 maggio 2011, numero 91”